About my previous post (“A little story”).

After a comment on that particular post I wanted to explain exactly what I was trying to say as – I didn’t realise when I wrote it – it might have been misinterpreted.

My gist was this: we’re often told that there’s only a very, very, very small percentage of women who “can’t breastfeed”; often 1 in 50 is quoted. People often use this “fact” as a stick to beat women with who formula feed their babies.

I was trying to write about the cultural reasons surrounding breastfeeding difficulties, so that the 1 in 50 figure (which I think is things like breast reduction surgery, medical conditions that stop a woman lactating, that kind of thing) is actually much, much higher.

For example, our culture (here in the UK) tells women not to share a bed with their babies, that this is somehow wrong or immoral. Not bedsharing makes night feeding a bit more of a hassle, so that some women try and night-wean their babies earlier than the baby is ready. Often this causes problems with the breastfeeding relationship and sometimes the woman even stops breastfeeding as a result of these problems. However, I wasn’t saying was that putting your baby in a cot is wrong, or that if you can’t breastfeed it’s your own fault for not bedsharing, or anything else along these lines!!

Another example was that our culture tells us that babies have dummies when they cry.  This causes problems; sometimes the baby gets confused with how to suck, doesn’t remove milk efficiently from the breast as a result and breastfeeding is compromised; sometimes the breasts aren’t stimulated enough as the baby sucks on the dummy for comfort instead of the breast and the woman’s milk supply isn’t as great as it could be and so on. However again I wasn’t saying that dummies are just wrong, or that if you can’t breastfeed it’s your own fault for using a dummy!

I just wanted to clear that up as I really do not want to come across as a judgemental person; if anything I was trying to show with that post the very fact that I don’t think we should be judgemental of women who are unable to breastfeed, whatever the reasons.

Until the information that is given to breastfeeding women by health care professionals and others is all correct, accurate and free of myths and cultural assumptions, until all mothers who want to breastfeed have access to accurate information and that information is readily available (no matter what her level of education, reading ability etc.), until breastfeeding is seen as a normal activity, until breasts are no longer seen solely as sex objects, until the stigma surrounding breastfeeding (especially in public, and with older babies, toddlers and children) has disappeared completely, until the formula companies have stopped shoving their erroneous information down our throats, until we stop forcing women back into paid work when they are breastfeeding, until women who do want to do paid work while breastfeeding are allowed to express milk or have their babies with them without any hassle and without having to fight for it, until practices (like Attachment Parenting, bedsharing, babywearing etc.) which help the breastfeeding relationship become the cultural norm, until it is considered a woman’s indelible right to breastfeed her infant should she wish, until all this happens I will not judge a woman for her infant feeding decision.

(And even if it does happen, I still won’t judge.)

Comment in the cafe

I wandered to Caffé (yes, they spell it with a double F) Nero today in St Helens Town Centre as baby B needed a feed and a change. I sat down with my ultra cheap filter coffee and fed baby B.

A woman from the other corner of the room stormed (it seemed like she stormed!) over to me and my heart sank. Not that I’m not a bolshie so and so but I just was not in the mood for a confrontation. So when she started with, “I just want to say,” I thought, “oh shoot. This is going to be bad.”

“I just want to say I think it’s lovely what you’re doing and I only wish more people would do it.”

It made my day; I thanked her profusely!

Thursday just gone

This Thursday just gone me, A and a friend that I met from Mumsnet went to Whiston Hospital for the antenatal workshop N runs.

And it was chocka! About ten pregnant women, us three nursing Mums and of course N; a full house! Excellent as always; the hand expression boob was out, lots of knitted boobs were everywhere, the jellybean game went down well and the whole thing was a roaring success.

And one of the Mums said, “I wasn’t sure until I came here, and the workshop’s been great. But what’s convinced me more than anything else is watching you three breastfeed your babies, it looks so natural and easy.”

Well I was grinning from ear to ear; what a lovely thing to say, and how true; the more you see women breastfeeding, the more likely you are to do it!

Can I bring my baby?

I have been a bit – well, gutted really – that the money has run out and I need to get a paid job. I always knew it was on the cards, but I’d hoped we’d be able to stretch it a bit longer. (Although originally we thought we’d only stretch it until September but with tax credits and child benefit have spun it out longer so actually it’s not that bad.) I felt particularly gutted that I’ve only just completed my Peer Counsellor course and wouldn’t be able to use it.

So I did some thinking and decided that I would like to run a session on a weekend. There’s already a session on Tuesday afternoons at our local Sure Start centre, which a lovely lady called H runs, and obviously I wouldn’t want to detract from any of the work she does, so I thought about how to make it different. The answer came to me after attending one of N’s antenatal workshops; lots of women said they wanted to come but couldn’t get the time off work. Although by law pregnant women are allowed time off work to attend antenatal classes, it often doesn’t actually work that way, and most pregnant women can’t attend them until the very end of their pregnancy, when they’re on maternity leave. This isn’t a great time really; they’re so exhausted and tired that things go in one ear and out the other (well, things did with me, anyway)!

So I thought about setting something up for pregnant women on a Saturday.  This would kill two birds with one stone; I’d be able to do something with my training, and it would be great for pregnant women (and also partners, who often aren’t allowed time off for antenatal classes, but are so important in helping women breastfeed).

I discussed it with K who agreed it was a good idea, and was going to the centre anyway the next day and would mention it to them.

I received a phone call from K later on that day saying, “I’ve told them, they think it’s a great idea… except, we can’t bring our babies as they’d be too much of a distraction.”

What?! We can’t bring our babies with us? Our breastfed babes in arms can’t come to a class all about breastfeeding? Surely a picture is worth a thousand words; surely actually watching another woman breastfeed, seeing that it doesn’t hurt, that it does become easy, enjoyable even, that it can be done and fitted in as part of everyday life, surely that’s important?

I was all ready to go down and raise hell, kick up a storm and put my point across until dh very wisely suggested that this might not be the best idea.  He said that he’d be happy to babysit baby B if necessary, but I said that wasn’t the point, I actually wanted to take baby B as, well, a demo model!

Before I went on maternity leave my career has been one of working in sales and recruitment so I decided to go to the Sure Start centre and sell the benefits of bringing a baby along, using an assumptive close!

I went down to the centre, had a chat with H and then talked to J, the manager about my idea, which I sold as, “I think it’s really important for pregnant women to see a real live baby breastfeeding,” or words to that effect.

So the idea was sold, everyone agreed, and I get to bring my baby, and K gets to bring H.

We’ll be starting it in the New Year; I’m excited!

Anyway I had better go, my real live demo model is waking up… more later!

A formula for prejudice

As a member of the Facebook group “hey Facebook! Breastfeeding is not obscene! – official petition to Facebook” and amongst the comments in reply to my article in the F word, “when did it all go so tits up?” I read statements along the line of, “I think it’s obscene to bottle feed, actually”, “I can understand the women who give up because it’s really difficult, but those who don’t even try?” and “I really struggled with breastfeeding, cracked nipples, mastitis, engorgement and I carried on; I think women who don’t are just lazy,” or “there’s actually plenty of support out there; look how many books and web sites there are about breastfeeding; there are even manned helplines!”

I wanted to counter some of this prejudice tackling just three of the issues that often get raised.

1) Prejudice against women who “don’t even try?”

We live in a bottle feeding culture. It’s the culturally normal thing to feed a baby formula from a bottle. Breastfeeding in our culture is seen as something that, yes, is “best” but, largely, unobtainable. If you’ve never seen any of your friends and relatives breastfeed; if you sign up for your free cuddly cow and are sent mailshots like this one and assume that breastfeeding is painful; if you see breasts as very private and the thought of “getting ‘em out” in public horrifies you; if you assume that formula is a very, very close second to human milk anyway; if you are given talks by a formula company representative at your antenatal classes on how to make up bottles… and more… if all this happens, you just assume bottle feeding is normal. Of course you aren’t even going to try breastfeeding. So let’s stop this prejudice against women who “don’t even try“.

2) Prejudice against women that gave up early on, from women who struggled but continued.

If you struggle in the early days, as often happens, you may well fight an uphill battle to keep going. If you kept going, it’s likely you had at least one of the following; you finally found an HCP who was supportive of breastfeeding and who sorted out your latch; you learned of the disadvantages of formula feeding from the internet or other sources; a supportive partner or relative who was happy to take care of the housework while you and your baby practised breastfeeding; access to books on the subject; access to the internet; sheer bloody-mindedness and stubbornness and a feeling that there must be help out there somewhere and you are going to find it; knowledge, from the internet or other sources, that the HCPs who give you terrible advice are actually wrong…

All of this assumes you have access, somehow, to a source of information or support somewhere. Many women don’t. They give up, usually in the first six weeks when breastfeeding can be difficult if mothers are not given the right information.  All it takes is one HCP to tell you, “some babies just can’t breastfeed” in the middle of the night when you’re struggling. If you don’t have someone you can text, in tears, to ascertain whether or not this is true, for example… you’d give up, wouldn’t you? So let’s stop this prejudice against women who “give up… even though I didn’t!” Yes, but you probably had some support, somewhere.

3) Prejudice against women who give up for seeming lack of support.

This to my mind is a continuation of (2). People say, “but there’s loads of support out there!” In a town with an average reading age of twelve who can read the leaflets that are hard enough to find anyway? How many people have access to the internet in the first place? And how many have knowledge of how to use it to gain accurate information rather than coming up with a formula company web site by mistake?  How often are antenatal classes cancelled, or don’t even cover breastfeeding anyway? How well are the helplines publicised in places where pregnant women might think to look? How often do Doctors’ surgeries display leaflets from formula companies rather than breastfeeding support groups?

Yes, there is support. But how do you know where to look if you don’t even know that support is out there in the first place? And how do you know it is out there if you don’t know where to look? So let’s stop this prejudice against women who don’t manage to find the support.

And anyway, isn’t it actually a woman’s right to choose how she feeds her baby? I just believe it should be a fully informed choice with lots of support and help.

Breastfeeding utopia – part two

Picture the scene. A game of football; children of infant-school age, about five or six, playing happily with jumpers for goalposts. Suddenly a little girl falls over and scrapes her knee. She runs off crying to Mummy who is sitting by watching with friends. A quick suckle, and a few moments later, everything is all right again. She runs back to the playing field and the game resumes. Move along, move along, nothing unusual to see here.

Move to this world’s equivalent of Mothercare. Sign in the window shows this world’s usual baby-related icons; teddy bear, breastfeeding symbol, sling. The shop sells these items of course, plus extra king size, extra low beds.

Take a walk along this high street and go into the café. Oh look! There’s a breastfeeding room; you get some in the real world as well! No, hang on, it’s just a breastfeeding chair, one of those comfy rocking chairs with stools and breastfeeding pillows. In fact there are quite a few of them. But they’re just out amongst the normal chairs. What does that sign say? “New Mum? Newborn baby? Need a hand? Take a seat and cushion and put your feet up while feeding your baby.” Of course, in this world, it doesn’t need saying that Mums are welcome to breastfeed anywhere they want to.

Accentuate the positives – part two

More positives from me today.

It’s been drawn to my attention that my poor old dh has received more than his fair share of dh-bashing on here.

So here are ten positives about the (grown) man in my life.

1. In the early part of my pregnancy, when I suffered with morning (and afternoon, and evening, and night) sickness, he made sure that I had at least one home-cooked nutritious meal every day. Even though he knew it would come right back up, he kept on cooking.

2. He apologised for the way he’d been towards the end of my pregnancy and the early part of baby B’s life. Sincerely apologised. We both had quite a few “learns” from that period.

3. He has recently learned how to get baby B to sleep, of his own volition, so that he can help with nap-times and take his turn in the evening.

4. When baby B and I had that awful, awful tummy bug, he cared for baby B, even feeding him defrosted EBM from a doidy cup, from five o’clock in the evening until two in the morning when I had stopped vomiting.

5. He listens to me moan about mil and is very diplomatic; he treads the very fine line between upsetting his dw and upsetting his dm.

6. He is very enthusiastic about baby B these days and is often heard to be saying how much he loves him and how wonderful he is, to anyone and everyone.

7. He listens to me witter  bang on talk about breastfeeding – and very little else – and rarely complains.

8. He sticks up for my point of view – even in front of mil, sometimes – and for my right to breastfeed in public, even when that’s in front of his friends.

9. He has been supportive about me extending my maternity leave.

10. He’s actually a really nice chap, who loves his ds very much. And his dw. (I think – I hope!)

Now at some point I’m going to have to write one of these posts about mil! Baby steps though, baby steps.

Biological nurturing in action

All I could say was, “wow!”

Today, at breastfeeding support group at Whiston hospital I saw biological nurturing in action.

If you want to know what biological nurturing is, have a look at the links on the right hand side of the page, under “self attachment”.

N had attended the “Little Angels” seminar in Blackburn last week where she learned from Suzanne Colson about biological nurturing, and couldn’t wait to try it.

Three women with non-latching babies came to support group today. Well, one or two were latching but not particularly well. All babies were under the age of six weeks.

N got each woman to lean right back and put baby’s head between her breast, and play with baby’s feet.

After a short time, baby’s head started bobbing up and down, almost in tune with baby’s feet. Then – as if by magic – suddenly – open mouth gape wide and OM! onto the breast. Perfect latch. Yes, the perfect latch. Baby stayed there suckling, properly suckling, gulping and taking in lots of milk.

Wow.

Now I want another one just so I can try it out! Either that, or take up wet-nursing. Not much call for that these days though.

Pity baby B is seven months old and those reflexes stop at about six weeks.

Breastfeeding Utopia – part one

If we lived in a world that was truly supportive of breastfeeding, what would it be like?

Here are just a few scenarios I could see happening in this breastfeeding utopia.

Scenario one

Antenatal class, second session. Held not in a hospital, but in a local cafe or pub. A woman walks in with a piece of old cloth for each expectant Mum in addition to newborn-sized dolls for everyone.

“What are we learning today?” one asks.

“I’m not sure. You got your list?”

Another pregnant woman pipes up, “yeah, here we are. Hands-free nursing.”

“Ooh that sounds exciting!”

The woman, who has brought her own nursing toddler with her, shows all the women how to tie the knot tightly, how to check baby is at the right level, how easy it is to walk around nursing baby… just then, all eyes turn towards the window.

“There’s an example,” says the mentor. Two women walk past wearing slings, one of the women has a baby in hers, contentedly nursing away. (You can see a lot of breast, but no one bats an eyelid. That’s normal in this world.) The other woman is actually using her sling to carry shopping and a child, probably about four years of age, walks along beside her.

“You can of course buy a nice fancy sling if you want, you don’t have to use an old piece of cloth,” she says, smiling “and when your babe is no longer ‘in arms’ you can use it like that woman, to carry shopping.”

Actually, even as I write down this scenario, I start to think, “surely if this was breastfeeding utopia, these women wouldn’t even need this class? It would just be something that women know, just like women in this real world learn how to feed baby a bottle at a very young age.”

Maybe this is breastfeeding utopia, first generation?

Anyway scenario two.

A playgroup, in which little girls – and boys – are playing with dolls.

“Dollie hungry,” says one girl, and lifts her top to put her doll to her chest. All the other children follow suite, even the boys.

Scenario three

From outside the room, you can hear laughter and friendly chat. It’s like any other work canteen or break room. Actually, not quite. There’s a whirring sound, like an electric motor, from inside.

Let’s go inside and see what’s going on.

Women in suits sit round, eating their butties, sipping coffee (oh, what’s she drinking? Ah, I see, fennel tea) and chatting. And expressing milk. This must be an expressing room for work out of the home Mums.

No, hang on. They’re not all expressing. Three of the women aren’t, anyway… and who is that, in the corner? Oh gosh! It’s a man! In fact, now I look around, there are quite a few men. As many as there are women. And none of them look askance at the expressers. In fact – hang on a minute – I was right all along.

It is just a work canteen, where women just happen to be expressing milk for their babies. This is just normal.

(Perhaps a few generations down the line in breastfeeding utopia, the women have their babies with them in work?)

Scenario four

Millie’s baby never put on much weight; in fact he even lost weight several weeks running. After several sessions with her GP – who is, of course, fully trained, as is every GP in this world, in breastfeeding – she was diagnosed with a very rare condition; not enough milk.

She gets a free supplemental nursing system on prescription.

What should she supplement with? The supermarkets do of course sell totally unbranded infant formula milk which has gone through rigorous testing to ensure it has as minimal a risk as possible to infant health, although of course it’s not human milk, and it does still pose a risk.

Hang on, no, that’s not right. Although that’s a scenario that’s more acceptable than the one we have now, this is breastfeeding utopia.

She gets a prescription for human milk with which she supplements her own feeds. All supplementation is of course at the breast.

Millie’s baby grows happy and healthy.

What happens when he gets to a year old?

Her prescription doesn’t run out just because she “can” give him cows’ milk. It continues for as long as she and her baby wish to carry on nursing.

Ah, lovely. Pity this is the real world.

Baby B’s Grandpa

On Friday, baby B met his Grandpa (my Dad) for the very first time.

Without going into too many details, I’ve been estranged from my side of the family for some time, but kept in touch with my Dad electronically; finally we arranged to meet up on the condition the rest of my immediate family didn’t come.

It was lovely to see him again, and wonderful for him to meet baby B, who seemed to take to him rather well.

We met in Cafe Nero in St Helens which I must say is excellent for breastfeeding. My Dad didn’t bat an eyelid and actually remarked on how good it was for settling baby B.

We got talking about breastfeeding (what did I used to talk to people about before I started breastfeeding?) as you do, and it transpired my Mum tried to breastfeed me and did so for a few weeks but stopped because she couldn’t make it work. And my Grannie breastfed my Dad for six months before moving him onto regular cows’ milk (the advice in those days apparently).

It was weird thinking of my Mum as struggling with breastfeeding like I did. What was sadder though was hearing my Dad talk of a tummy bug I had (about the same age baby B had his, strangely enough) and how I could not keep anything down and was no longer breastfed, so in panic the only thing they could think of to give me was cooled boiled water with sugar in it.

Weird thinking of my parents phased by anything. But also made me think how grateful I was for the support I received that enabled me to continue breastfeeding, as I would have been even more beside myself during baby B’s tummy bug had I not had that option open to me.

I hope baby B sees more of his Grandpa in future.